Broken Glass
by daenabenjen42
Summary: Unto every ending, there is a new beginning... drabble series.
1. Unto Every Ending

Title: Broken Glass (Drabble Series)  
Fandom: RoboCop: The Series  
Characters: Maybe not everybody...  
Disclaimer: *points at Orion Entertainment* Very, very disclaimed.  
Notes: As I did not see anything precluding fic for the big metal guy, I'm posting. I'm using the TV series continuity. That difference is the presence of Lisa Madigan rather than Anne Lewis, and Ellen Murphy became Nancy.

* * *

_Unto every ending..._ (Nancy Murphy, Lisa Madigan, and a nurse...)

* * *

**Truth**

* * *

The first thing she noticed upon entering the hospital emergency waiting room was a woman in police patrol armor attire. It made her pause and really look, noticing at once that something was not only wrong, but also personal. Very personal, for the officer to be here in armor, helmet in her hands, with an expression no one should ever have on their face.

Sitting down next to the officer she didn't know, Nancy Murphy felt an instant connection to the woman. There was a devastating truth in those eyes, and all at once she didn't have to ask how bad it was.

* * *

**Trust**

* * *

Lisa Madigan didn't trust herself to speak coherently, so she didn't try to say anything at all. Not even when the unfamiliar woman sat down in the chair next to hers. To have seen her partner of not even one day... like that... her hands tightened their grip on the helmet. It was too much.

"Madigan?" the woman questioned, just as a nurse came out and called his name, causing the woman to flinch. Lisa blinked. Was this...? No, it couldn't be. Could it?

But as the woman turned to face the nurse, her suspicion was confirmed. This woman was his wife.

* * *

**Honor**

* * *

As the doctor called time of death, the nurse can't help but look at their patient's open eyes. Open, but now unseeing... more than distant. Dead. It is something he has seen far, far too often of late. He doesn't like it. Reaching over as other nurses around him begin to clean up the room, he closes the man's eyes and honors him with a solemn moment of silence.

Then he sets about helping clean up, and doesn't miss another nurse nodding their approval at his respectful actions. The nurse shuddered to think of what could have caused the officer's injuries.

* * *

**Loyalty**

* * *

Before the nurse could beckon them to join him, Madigan put a hand up. "Can we have a minute?" Her voice sounded strained to her own ears. Odd. "Somewhere private?"

The nurse paused, then nodded. "Of course. The chapel is around the corner." When Murphy's wife turned to look at her, the nurse answered Madigan's unvoiced question with a quick headshake. No. She took a deep breath and led the woman to the chapel. No one else would tell his wife this. She owed him that much. Especially now.

* * *

**Love**

* * *

Silence reigned for long minutes as both women sat in the hospital chapel and Nancy Murphy waited for Madigan to find her voice again. "You don't have to..."

"I was his partner," Madigan told her suddenly. "And yes. Yes I do."

Nancy paused, blinking back tears. It said something about her husband that a brand new partner would feel obligated to pull her aside and explain... and break news, good or bad. In this case, it was bad. She knew that without asking. In a few moments in a hospital chapel, a friendship between two women began to form.


	2. Ghosts Playing Chess in Cyberspace

_Ghosts playing chess in cyberspace..._ (Alex Murphy and Diana Powers)

* * *

**Smart**

* * *

Diana watched him from the other side of the chess board, wondering just why he'd joined her in here. It wasn't as if he didn't have something to do, after all. He did, for somewhere a crime was always happening. "Alex..."

"Don't rush me," he muttered as he stared at the board intently. "Russell said I was good at this game, and I've never played against a computer that wasn't in my head before."

"And you're not playing the computer now, either."

He glanced at her, smirking, and suddenly Diana didn't have to wonder what his wife had seen in him.

* * *

**99**

* * *

"So," he said after a minute of echoing silence that seemed to disappear into the edges of cyberspace and back again. "Out of the hundred or so things we don't get to do anymore, what do you miss the most?"

"Dessert," she said immediately, and moved a pawn forward. "Hadn't let myself eat it for a year, and anything I generate in here just doesn't taste the same." She concentrated and an Icee appeared in her hand. "See?"

Alex nodded. "I do."

"What do you miss? Other than your family, I mean."

He paused for a long moment, a strange expression on his face. "Steak."

* * *

**Chief**

* * *

Alex shook himself and moved a pawn forward, then leaned back and looked at her. At her silent question, he frowned. "What?"

"You miss steak?" It was a careful question, for she'd learned that he often had flashbacks. This felt like one of those.

"Yes. Odd thing to miss, isn't it?"

"No, not really. I just thought you were going to say being able to sneak around without people hearing you coming."

Alex paused. "Hadn't thought of that."

She nodded, let the Icee vanish back into the ether, and moved her knight forward. "Little things."

"Like steak dinners and dessert."

* * *

**Agents**

* * *

An hour later, they were still playing, and he'd checked her six times. She'd reciprocated by checking him twice. "Shouldn't you be getting back to patrol?"

"Lippencott'll just demand I come in to have a sleep cycle."

She'd let herself forget for a moment that he had a technician for a babysitter. "And that's a bad thing?"

"Don't want to sleep. Dreams."

Diana blinked at the visible shudder. That explained some things. "Oh. Of?"

He didn't say, but she could hear distant echoes of thunder and laughing long after he took his leave.

* * *

**Shoe**

* * *

Upon sitting down at his desk in the morning, the Chairman found a message waiting for him on his desk monitor. It was short, but no less important than every other message he got during the day...

_"Mr. Chairman, it has come to our attention that there are things in life worth experiencing. These are, in no particular order: shoe shopping, steak dinner, a well-played game of chess, dessert, and being able to sneak around without being noticed. Life is wonderful, sir, and don't forget to enjoy the small things. - Murphy and Diana" _

He sat there for long minutes before hitting save and taking a moment of silence out of respect for two lives forever changed.


	3. Questions, Hints, and Grief

_Questions, hints, and grief..._ (UDC 4)

* * *

**Gaze**

* * *

As she's gotten older, Gadget has often wondered many things about her friend who seems to have two names, "Robocop" and "Murphy", and a soft spot for her best friend Jimmy Murphy, though no one ever actually says anything about it. It's not until she's at Jimmy's house and sees the pictures of a very familiar face gazing up at her from photographs... that something clicks.

Picking up the framed photo, she stares at it. At the man with dark hair in a police uniform holding a baby with Jimmy's mom, with eyes she knows though she has never met him before.

* * *

**Wink**

* * *

Jimmy watches as she picks up the photograph of his father, his mother, and himself as a baby and studies it intently, and wonders why she's so interested in it. It's just his family in that photo. One he's looked at often enough to have it memorized. What he wouldn't give, sometimes, to have his family be that again. Whole. Happy. Together. "Gadget?"

She jumps a little, startled, and turns to him. "This is of you, right?"

He nodded. "Why?"

"I don't have any like this."

Oh. So that was what drew her to it...

* * *

**Distance**

* * *

As she puts the photo back where she found it, Gadget feels like wincing for not saying what was on her mind. She knows those eyes, that face under the helmet is the same. The same and yet... distant. Changed.

Glancing at the photo one more time, she knows she made the right choice in keeping silent. It's not hers to tell, though it would probably help them to know. "Where is he?" The words are out before she even knows she's said them.

Did it sound as stupid to him as it felt to ask?

* * *

**Cold as Ice**

* * *

The question draws him up short and he stares at her. "What?" Usually, no one ever asked that question.

She motions to the photo. "Him."

It is a question he is unprepared to answer as his mother beckons them gently into the kitchen. How can he answer in just the right way? What had made her ask? The questions tumble through his mind like a landslide as he sits down at the kitchen table. Unable to speak, he simply looks back at her from across a table.

* * *

**Eternal Flame**

* * *

Gadget looked from Jimmy to his mother and back again, taking in the shocked silence that had settled around them. She looked away. "I shouldn't have asked."

"No," Jimmy's mother said slowly. "I'm glad you did, Gadget."

Gadget blinked and looked at the woman who was smiling warmly at her, though her eyes were shimmering with unshed tears. "I don't understand."

"It was six years ago today that Alex died. On duty." She reached over and held her son's hand, then took hold of Gadget's, held it firmly. "And it's good to remember the bad with the good."


	4. always a crime happening somewhere

A/N: Lines in italics are actual lines from the series. And because it was asked of me... I give you Alex. Prompts provided by the Balto Statue Plaque that exists in Central Park in New York City.

* * *

_Always a crime happening, somewhere... _ (Alex Murphy/Robocop)

* * *

**Endurance**

* * *

"_Do you know how many sleep cycles you've missed?"_

That question from Charlie, in that tone of voice, makes him want to wince inside, and suddenly he's overtaken by a memory flash of a lecture involving staying out at all hours of the night, given by his father. It is gone as soon as it appears, but the defensive feeling remains.

He'd missed at least five sleep cycles working on cases and doing patrols. Things had gotten done, people caught. "_I have a job to do."_

Charlie glares at him, annoyed. "_Yeah, well, you'd make my job a lot easier by sticking to the maintenance schedule."_

* * *

**Fidelity**

* * *

Sometimes it happens when he least expects it: a memory flash that feels so real he can taste it. Reach for it, grab on, and never let go. And then it's gone again. People he sees, things they say... reminders of another life. His life... the life he lost in a hail of gun fire and cruelty.

He never mentions the flashes to anyone, because it is a comfort. Private. As time has gone on, and he?s seen the people from the flashes again and again, he remembers more.

"_Alex, can you help me?"_

"_You're the greatest, Dad!"_

"_You're never around when we need you, Alex!"_

"_I really have to tell you something. I love you very much."_

"_Let's work on our multiplication tables."_

* * *

**Intelligence**

* * *

It is hours after being decontaminated from the RicinX class one biotoxin that he surprises Sergeant Parks with the suggestion of testing for DNA from sweat left on a sweatshirt. The Sergeant's expression is surprised, but his eyes tell Robo something else... almost as if he's passed a test of some kind. But that doesn't make any sense. He had a test to pass?

The Sergeant nods and seals the sweatshirt in an evidence bag. "Good idea."

Three hours later, after breaking himself out of a trash compactor after he should not have been able to, Robo understands. He remembers Madigan kneeling over him in the steel mill, terrified, and urging him to fight. No matter how long it's been, there are still some things to prove.


	5. officer missing episode tag

A/N: I'm still not sure how I got from "drabbles" to "episode tag" but I did, so here it be, an episode tag for episode four, "Officer Down." What happened there? Well... among other things, Robo got rammed by truck driven by Confederate Army-themed crazies (yes... in Detroit).

* * *

Lisa Madigan yawned as she drank her morning coffee and walked back to the converted lab area to check on her partner. Entering the room, she paused. Robo's helmet was off, his eyes were closed, head slumped, posture... more relaxed than she'd ever seen it be when he was awake. But he couldn't be asleep at this hour, could he? Not even after an all-night patrol. It was unthinkable.

Glancing around, she found Charlie sitting at a monitor, intently studying lines of code. "What did I miss?"

"Hmmm?" Charlie glanced at her, smiled in acknowledgement, then returned to studying the lines of code. "Enforced sleep cycle, by order of the Chairman." He glanced at her again, finally noticed the frown. "Robo had a run in with a street gang last night. Got thrown thirty feet saving a family... someone fixed the damage in the field. Mostly. What they missed, I took care of an hour ago."

Which explained why Charlie was so distracted, she mused as she turned and took a long look at her partner's sleeping face. "And the sleep cycle?"

"After the night he had?"

"Ah." Eyes scanning the room, her gaze lit on a familiar chest plate... that had a nasty dent in it. Going over, she picked the heavy chest plate up, fully realizing just how much force it would have taken to dent the polymer metal reinforced with kevlar. She studied the dent for a long moment before setting the chest plate down again, only to pause when she noticed the helmet. Which was cracked. Very cracked.

"Detective?" Charlie asked when he noticed her staring at the damaged pieces.

She turned back to look at the sleeping cyborg again. "How is he? A hit like that..."

Charlie pushed away from the computer terminal and looked at his sleeping charge, seeming to choose his words carefully. "You missed the Chairman escorting him all the way in here, if that tells you anything. He stayed until I put Robo under and set about repairs. And he checked out. No memory loss from the shutdown in the field."

Madigan nodded wordless as she sank into a chair, only remembering the coffee cup still in her hand when Charlie gently took it from her.

She was still sitting like that, stunned into silence and staring at Robo as slept, when Sergeant Parks entered and startled her. "Madigan, I..." Parks studied her, looked at the sleeping cyborg, looked at Charlie, and decided to pull up a chair. "He'll be fine."

Blinking, Lisa shook herself. "I know. It's just... so many close calls. And every time feels like the first."

Parks nodded and looked at Charlie, only just noticing the concerned expression on his face and the coffee cup in his hand. "You going to drink that?"

Charlie nodded to Madigan. "It's hers." He glanced at Robo, then decided to pull up a chair as well, and handed to cup back to her. "I didn't... what was he like? I see personality quirks sometimes, but it isn't the same as seeing a person and really getting to know them."

Though startled by the unusually personal question, Lisa smiled. "He loved his family, Charlie. Loved being a cop. And... oh! I know you've seen him do it. That spinning trick he does when he holsters his sidearm? He taught himself to do that because his son was interested in a show called T.J. Lazer. Only... he wasn't yet very good at it when... you know."

Charlie stared at her. "Really?"

"Really." She shifted her gaze to Parks. "And remember how he hated writing reports?"

"Vividly," Parks told her. "Still have to remind him on occasion to download 'em, too."

Lisa chuckled. "Was that last week or the week before?"

"That's every week... including yesterday, right before evening patrol." Parks nodded to the dented chest plate and the cracked helmet. "And he had the Chairman with him for a ride-along when that happened."

Lisa frowned. "In the middle of a zone-wide blackout?"

"Yes." Parks glanced at Charlie. "Did the Chairman seem a little more... compassionate this morning?"

Charlie glanced at the sleeping Robo, pursed his lips in frustration. "Concerned. And yes. He did. He was probably also somewhat relieved because a shut down like that could have caused permanent amnesia."

Now it was Lisa's turn to blink in confusion. "What?"

"The system wasn't designed to be shut down in an uncontrolled environment. I've been trying to make that problem... less, but there's only so much I can do. It is what it is." Charlie glanced away from them to look at the discarded chest plate and helmet. "And who would have been expecting him to get rammed brutally by a truck while defending people?" The three of them were startled by the tell-tale movement of servos, and Charlie looked to find his charge moving in his sleep. "Odd..."

"Odd how?" Lisa asked.

Charlie turned to look at the computer terminal he'd been studying when Lisa had walked in, and blinked at the rapidity of the lines of code appearing there. "He's dreaming."

"And that's odd?"

"No, but I thought he was under far enough that he wouldn't." Charlie turned back to find them both staring at him in confusion. "What?"

"He doesn't usually dream?" Parks asked, now curious at Charlie's reaction.

Charlie sighed. "Remember how the system wasn't designed to be shut down without precautions?"

"Yes..."

"It also wasn't designed with a person in mind. He was supposed to be blank, completely, aside from the police experience. And he was... for a while. And then... well, then he had a violent flashback during a sleep cycle." Charlie nodded to Robo. "You know the rest."

Parks nodded slowly. "Was that about the time that he went after those..."

"Yes."

"Oh."

Lisa glanced down at the cooling coffee in her hands, shrugged, and downed the rest of it. Then she stood up, threw the empty cup into a nearby trashcan, and moved to look at Robo closer. She could see his eyes moving beneath those eyelids, and wondered what was going on in that mind of his. Here he was, her partner, for all intents and purposes... Well, he was and he wasn't. In some ways, the man he'd been was gone forever. The bullet to the head had seen to that. But he was here. She saw him, underneath the computer programming, now and then. Slowly, she turned to look at Charlie. "Call me when he wakes up again."

Charlie nodded and watched her go, then looked at Parks. "I didn't mean to stir up bad memories."

Parks nodded. "I think you helped, Charlie."

And with that, Charlie was left alone to study the lines of code.


	6. UDC 7, Week One

A/N: Just when I wasn't going to join in for UDC 7, I got attacked by plot bunny. (And Omni 1? Working on it. :) )

* * *

UDC 7 – Week One

* * *

1. Baby

* * *

The baby was very wiggly as the photographer tried to pose them for the picture, and he couldn't help but chuckle as he watched Nancy struggle to hold him. She turned, glared for a moment, and then handed Jimmy to him with a smirk. "Here."

Alex soon found out that stuggling to hold a squirming, protesting infant and smile at the same time was nearly impossible.

Years later, after a horrific day and night, Nancy Murphy held the photograph and wept, wishing to return to that day when everything was simpler. Had it been only yesterday that she'd seen him off to work?

* * *

2. Child

* * *

He'd been home for half an hour when he walked into the living room to see Jimmy watching TV, and caught the tail-end of a promo for a show airing that night. His son turned to him with a grin. "Can you do that, Dad?"

Alex paused, wondering if he'd actually seen someone spin a laser pistol and then holster it. Slowly, he sat down next to his son. "Maybe. When they show it again, we'll see."

He spent months teaching himself to do it with his service pistol… after all, role models were very important to a boy.

* * *

3. Teenager

* * *

Jimmy was still sitting, dumb-struck, in the police car when his mother showed up. Had he really seen what he thought he saw? Had Robocop just holstered his weapon like TJ Laser?!

As he got out of Officer Madigan's patrol cruiser, and began talking to his mother for the first time in more than a week, Jimmy Murphy had no time to ponder what it might mean. But he didn't forget.

Robocop would never know that he was now a role model to his son, even if his son would never know for sure that his father wasn't completely dead.

* * *

4. Adult

* * *

As his father vented emotion over the situation, Robo took solace in the fact that someone was angry over the situation, but not at him. Someone else was angry, and he wanted to give an answer for who was responsible for him ending up like this. Wanted to, but didn't because the answer "they're all mostly dead" wasn't an answer he could or would give.

As he looked into his father's eyes, he said the only thing he could. "I'm still a cop."

Russell Murphy nodded, eyes bright with unshed emotion. "Yes. Yes, you are."

* * *

5. Elderly

* * *

She was waiting at the kitchen table when he returned from putting an old case finally to rest, and held out a hand patiently. Wordlessly, he put the gun he'd taken out of the house into her waiting hand, and shook his head. "Didn't have to."

"Good." Dorothy looked at it for a long moment, studied his face for a moment more, and then handed it back to him. "Put it away."

"You're not going to ask."

"About...?

"How it went."

"No."

He paused, nodded once, and moved to put the gun away.


	7. UDC 7, Week Two

Week 2 – UDC 7

* * *

**Healthy**

* * *

"You be careful out there."

Her tone was the first thing he noticed as he opened the front door that morning, and it made him pause. Had she ever sounded that worried before, or was it just the day, and the morning news of more mayhem than usual on her mind? Slowly, he turned and looked at her, and then nodded. "Of course."

"You're not just saying that, are you, Alex?"

"No. I'm not just saying that. I'm always careful."

The 'as careful as a cop could be on the streets of Detroit in the middle of a crime wave' part of it went unsaid.

* * *

**Injured**

* * *

The call came around 6PM that evening and she was so stunned, she nearly burned her hand on the frying pan. Staring down at what she'd been making for dinner, Nancy let the words of the person on the other end roll over her. Then they stopped talking, waiting for her to say something in reply. A full minute went by before she acknowledged them again, voice still not trustworthy as she turned the burners off. Then she hung up the phone and went to bundle up her son to take him to his grandparents.

Dinner was left forgotten on the stove.

* * *

**Sick**

* * *

It was the first time Jimmy had gotten sick since… well, since before that day when their lives had turned upside down and inside out. Nancy tried to smile as she watched him eat soup with glazed eyes, but couldn't. She kept remembering another night, spent at home with a sick child, and yelling at her husband when he finally got off shift that he was never around when they needed him.

Now he really wasn't around, and all she wanted to do was fall into his arms and take it back.

* * *

**Stressed**

* * *

When push came to shove, Chip Chaykin did the only thing he could think of: grab the pushy woman police officer and threaten to sedate her with the sedative unless every last police officer stood by while he went on his merry way and ran far, far away from this mess he'd helped create.

He was so busy worrying about Robocop and the other officers that he forgot about the one in his arms and was completely unprepared for her twisting in his grip and turning the tables on him.

* * *

**Frustrated**

* * *

It was madness, everything that had happened to her in the last three days, Diana reflected as she both looked the Chairman in the eye and slowly put the power grid back in order. The Chairman hadn't said a word yet to her as he looked around the room, apparently taking everything in. Then he focused on her, sitting in the flux, staring back at him tiredly. "Hi."

"Miss Powers?" he asked, finally, recognizing her.

Sighing needlessly, Diana proceeded to explain what she knew of how she'd ended up interfaced with a computer. Which wasn't much, as she'd gone from being falsely praised for finding something in paperwork one moment, to being murdered for her brain the next.


	8. Fifty Drabbles Challenge

A/N: Omni 1 asked for something specific, and I love to jump around the timeline, and there was this challenge called the fifty sentences challenge... With moderator approval to do drabbles instead of single sentences, I bring you this chapter.

* * *

**Wall**

* * *

It hit him so suddenly, he almost felt like he'd run into a wall as he stared through the window, Gadget nearly forgotten beside him. Reality of years gone by and things lost slammed down around him as he watched his wife explain to Fanny Lamour that their son was missing, and all he wanted to do in that moment was join her in there, demanding and yelling and screaming for answers and solutions. Anything but listen as she explained that they'd had a fight over normal things.

What finally made him turn away from the window was the angry boy who seemed to be staring at him from the TV screen, as if he was to blame for everything being so messed up. If Robo hadn't made up his mind before, what he saw there in those eyes had done exactly that.

"What's there to smile about?" would echo in his mind all the way back to Metro South, along with the sounds of remembered gunfire and cruel laughter.

* * *

**Bridge**

* * *

Like everyone else standing around in the room for target practice and watching the metal man shoot the target to pieces, she'd been wondering about him. About who it might be under that helmet, if there was, in fact, a person under there. And then she saw something that shocked and startled her to her core: the way he holstered his weapon. She'd seen that before. Seen someone practicing that very thing, perfecting it with the ammunition removed during down time.

Only... it couldn't be. Could it? He'd died of traumatic injuries! There was a death certificate on record! She'd been at his funeral! It just couldn't be. They wouldn't have. Couldn't have.

And just like that, Officer Lisa Madigan's world was turned on its ear and she was determined to find out if she was right...

* * *

**Architect**

* * *

It was pride that kept him at the top. Pride in himself and in what he did to help those around him. Pride in his projects. There had been mishaps. There had been unintentional death. That was business, plain and simple.

As Richard Jones watched Bob Morten walk away, his frown turned into a grimace. There was going to be another death, now. Morten had just signed his own death warrant, though he didn't know it yet. But he would, within twenty-four hours time. It would be cruel. But then... business was often cruel.

* * *

**Different**

* * *

When his grandfather rejoined him after speaking to Robocop, the expression on his face was different. Puzzling. As if he was trying to work something through and couldn't figure out what to say. "Grandpa?"

His grandfather blinked down at him for a long moment, and then suddenly he was hugging him. Jimmy was confused, but let the hug continue until his grandfather pulled back to look at him again. "I know your father would be proud of you, of how you handled yourself in there tonight, Jimmy."

Now it was Jimmy's turn to blink in confusion. "How?"

"Because I am."

* * *

**Alike**

* * *

The sound of the doors opening caused Charlie to turn away from the computer screen, and he frowned to find retired Captain Russell Murphy standing there with what looked suspiciously like a chess board. "Can I help you?"

The Captain glanced at him, then his gaze shifted to the cyborg who currently had his helmet off, eyes closed for a sleep cycle, sitting in the maintenance chair. "I'll need a table."

"A table?"

"To set up the game." The Captain nodded to Robo. "He been asleep long?"

Charlie suddenly understood and went to go find a table. He was treated to the sight of an unexpectedly lively chess match.

* * *

**Catch**

* * *

It was an emergency she nearly missed, and as she held onto his fading functions for dear life, urging him not to leave her, Diana wanted to kick herself. Repeatedly. How could she have missed the Chairman's system being activated like that?! It was inexcusable!

_"Come on, Alex! I'll haunt you forever! That's a promise!"_

And it was. And, suddenly, it wasn't just her handing onto him from the inside for dear life, but also Charlie by remote contact, fixing what the termination program had broken. She'd never been so happy to have someone else take the burden off her shoulders in her entire life.

* * *

**Tale**

* * *

Lisa found the teenager sitting at a computer terminal, staring at information she shouldn't have even been looking at, and had to pause for a moment to wonder why there were tear tracks on Gadget's face. It was odd to see her crying, for she was normally very upbeat. "Gadget?"

"I saw pictures today," Gadget said slowly, not looking away from the screen. "Of him. At Jimmy's house."

Lisa blinked in realization. "Oh."

"I wanted to tell when I realized. Wanted to, but..." And then Gadget crumpled into Lisa's waiting arms. "It's not fair!"

She couldn't have agreed with her more.

* * *

**Telling**

* * *

It was hours after he'd left her again, and Diana was alone with her thoughts as she multi-tasked the entire city without thinking about it. She'd liked him, Charlie Lippencott. He could dance, he had manners, and he had let her go with what little explanation she'd been able to give him. Why couldn't she have met him when she had still actually had a body?

Afterwards, Charlie would hear I Only Have Eyes For You faintly and smile in remembrance, never realizing she was telling him without actually telling him. No one ever said she couldn't hint.

* * *

**Hidden**

* * *

The Chairman waited until the officers had left before moving with prescision to his desk and beginning the process of changing the Zone Five immobilization switch. He could only imagine how frustrated Robocop was at not being able to enter a zone where crime was going on.

As he changed the directive, the Chairman smiled. _"Okay, Murphy. Time to take the gloves off."_

Later, when he read the reports on the incident, he was startled to find out that one James Murphy had also been there in the middle of it all.

* * *

**Claim**

* * *

The woman standing before him had made a claim that he could not confirm or deny. It made no sense. None at all. She'd looked over his shoulder, took a deep breath, and looked him directly in the visor, eyes full of determination. _"Murphy, it's you!"_

Not sure how to respond to something that made no sense, he detoured around her.

* * *

**Blank**

* * *

Voices babbling around her, Lisa knew something was wrong the moment she saw the uncharacteristic blankness in his eyes that had not been there the day before when they'd been joking about his new vehicle that Charlie had shown them the specs on. She could see the confusion without him needing to say something._ "Hey, are you okay?"_

_"I don't... remember."_

Stunned, she nearly missed the Chairman blowing up about signing his company over to a madman.

* * *

**Empty**

* * *

It had taken losing her body to realize how small her life had been. How empty. How insignificant.

Before, all she'd wanted to do was be successful, climb the career ladder, to do her job well, and to find errors in the paperwork that no one else could. That's what she'd been doing, when she had walked in at the wrong or right moment, after all... her job.

Now... well, now, she was beyond climbing the ladder. And, when she thought about it, her head was full providing for the daily needs of a million or more people. And she'd have loved a real aspirin, because it gave her a headache. Brainache. Whichever it was, Diana still wanted an aspirin.

* * *

**Full**

* * *

The bin was full of money, all right: burned money! Money they'd just risked their lives and their freedom to steal.

As he screamed and hollered at the man whose job it had been to rig the charges, Clarence Boddicker had but one thought: this guy was going to die. Today, if possible. Didn't matter how.

Not ten minutes later, they were heaving him, wounded, out of the back door of the van at a police car as a delaying tactic.

* * *

**Far**

* * *

The river hadn't been very far from the house on Primrose lane, he realized as he got out of the car and shut the door. He remembered fishing here with his father and his son on a blustery afternoon, several months before the nightmare of the steel mill.

Jimmy had caught a small catfish, his father hadn't caught anything, and he... had caught several fish, one a big bass that had caused his son to smile up at him and say: _"When I grow up, I wanna be just like you, Dad!"_

Robo stood at the water's edge for a long while and reveled in the memories of that afternoon.

* * *

**Beyond**

* * *

It hadn't escaped Russell Murphy's notice that everyone, including The Chairman of OCP, were concerned as Robocop boarded the helicopter to go deal with a mad man who was threatening the lives of everyone in a ten-to-twenty mile radius.

As the helicopter took off with Robocop aboard, he turned to find the Chairman, Seargent Parks, and Detective Madigan staring into the dark sky after it for a few moments longer before each seemed to shake themselves and return to the task at hand. Madigan caught his eye and smiled slightly. "He's never careful enough for his own good."

"Ah." Somehow, he got the feeling it was more than that...

* * *

**Heal**

* * *

Back at the station after the madness of the night, Lisa finally had time to sit and wonder how he'd gone from not remembering a thing to battling a street gang and fixing whatever was broken at Public Works that had caused the city-wide blackouts. She'd tried asking Charlie about it, but he seemed more confused than she felt, and he'd muttered something about having been napping one minute, and being woken by the Chairman inexplicably exclaiming "murder!" repeatedly and Robo's metal backside as he'd stormed out.

Well... however it had happened, she was glad it had. Very, very glad.

* * *

**Steady**

* * *

The sound of Lisa's steady, mechanical breathing was the first thing to greet her as Diana materialized at his side in a holographic whirl. Diana sighed and looked closely at the sleeping woman who had nearly died because she'd been infected with a virus and let everything go to heck for an entire afternoon. Some days, it just didn't pay to get out of her flux shower at Public Works.

"Diana?" the question was neutral, but she could hear the curiosity underneath.

She glanced at him, tried to smile, and failed miserably. "Hi."

"They are working on programming the nanites now."

"I know," Diana let the silence hang there between them while she contemplated what it would take to get Charlie to make it so Alex could use contractions. It was maddening, sometimes! "So, really... you hated Disco?"

"Yes."

Later, when Lisa woke up from her nanite surgery, she'd wonder why a hospital would be playing "Celebration!" over it's PA system, and also why Robo seemed disgruntled...

* * *

**Aid**

* * *

The officers responding to the scene at the warehouse got there after Robocop, stunned to find him out cold and twitching on the ground. What could have done this? Wasting no time, they radioed for aid specifically for their one and only cyborg police officer.

When Lippencott arrived with a handful of technicians, the expression on his face was livid, and he set right to work assessing the damage. They couldn't tell if it was clinical concern, or the real thing, but maybe it didn't matter either way.

* * *

**Kinship**

* * *

_"Your husband was an officer of Metro South. We are all family."_

It was true, he reflected as he watched her glance back at him while the other officers took her statement. The explanation he had given her for the criminal's inexplicable behavior was true.

Nancy Murphy would never know that what was left of her husband underneath the armor and the programming had come as close as he ever would to telling her the truth, while also reminding her that she had a family out there who all wore blue, protected the innocent, and did their best to uphold the law. Family.

* * *

**Falter**

* * *

Frank Uno wasn't sure what to think as he raised his head after struggling up the stairs and looked at the woman who was and wasn't there, who glowed with unnatural light. Was she real? Was any of this nightmare real? Had his sqaudmates really died one by one from being eaten up by disease from the inside out? And was that really his childhood friend underneath the armor whom he'd nearly killed not two days ago with a cannon that spat supercharged plasma?

He tried to take another step forward, but the pain caused him to double over and fall to the floor. His questions would go unanswered, even as Murphy offered to call paramedics for him and was refused. The white-hot pain was real, and that was answer enough.

* * *

**Heart**

* * *

Walking through what had been his house, he remembers things. Snippets of the life he had lived in it. His son watching television, his wife up late tiredly paying bills... a shared moment of intimacy in their bedroom. Putting a picture up on the wall with her. Taking a heavy box from her and putting into a closet on a high shelf.

Finally, in the kitchen amid debris on a long-unused stove, he finds a picture. Staring at the smiling faces, on of them his own, it is hard to believe.

The silence, save for the automated real estate agent, makes it harder still.

* * *

**Soul**

* * *

Standing behind the van and staring into the vacant eyes of his former partner, Robo is determinded to find the man beneath the conditioning. To find him like he himself had been found under the amnesia on a dark night at a gas station. This was Malloy, so..._ "What is Malloy's rule number one?!"_

At first, there was only a blank stare, so he asked again, and then a third time. And then Timothy Malloy blinked and slowly, with great effort, told him: _"There is... not-thing... better... than... being... a cop. Cop. Cop!"_

Satisfied, Robo loosened his grip slightly. _"Thank you. Partner."_

Malloy's eyes went wide as he realized who was standing in front of him.

* * *

**Truth**

* * *

Growing up at Childrens Services, the truth was something she wasn't familiar with. No one was honest, not even the social workers, and certainly not Fanny Lamour. The woman lied to her all the time!

But... sitting in the car with Robocop and hearing him ask a question, Gadget couldn't help but wonder if maybe it was a bad thing that everyone around her lied all the time.

* * *

**Hope**

* * *

Lisa had been watching the activity of the squad room over the top of Gadget's head when the girl suddenly pushed away and looked at her. "Better?"

Gadget nodded slowly. "It's still not fair."

"Nope."

"What was he like when he was Jimmy's dad?"

Lisa suddenly had the really strange urge to chuckle. "Oh, he still is, Gadget. He still is."

"That's not what I meant!"

Lisa tried to smile. "I know. You mean... before. Before the suit."

"Yes!"

Distracted for a moment by the object of their conversation escorting a perpetrator to the front desk and then stomping back out again, Lisa smirked. There was so much she could say, but all of it was blackmail material! "Sarge is going to have to remind him to download his reports again..."

Gadget frowned. "What does downloading reports have to do with anything?"

* * *

**Faith**

* * *

He understood everything the Chairman had told him about the system shutdown in the field. Understood that if they did it here, without a controlled situation, what kind of risk he was taking even thinking about letting Joe patch the damaged cable. But... but there was a sick little boy offering encouragement in between wracking coughs while he cheered his father on. A little boy who had the same faith that his father could fix everything, who reminded him of Jimmy and was inspiring memory flashes. A little boy who might not make it through the night if they didn't do something drastic.

For that little boy, it was worth the risk. He stared back at the Chairman, and let the words fall where they may. _"To be human, is to risk."_

* * *

**Depth**

* * *

It is weeks after that night spent in his friend's office apartment in the shut-down and abandoned factory that something finally clicks into place. Watching television with his healing son, Joe frowns at the mention of a slain police officer in connection with the teenager being interviewed by Ortega in relation to the CAP Crew. Nudging Josh, he asks: "What did they say the boy's last name was?"

Josh yawns, thinks for a moment. "Murphy?"

Thinking back to that night, to the eyes he'd looked into when he had removed the helmet with a drill... it makes sense. Everything said between the OCP Chairman and the cyborg suddenly makes sense. "Oh."

* * *

**Lovely**

* * *

There was a knock at the door, but when she went to answer it, no one was there. Frowning, she was about to close the door again when she saw the white roses, two of them, laying on the doormat. Before picking them up, she glanced around, wondering who could have left them. Seeing no one, suspicious or otherwise, she picked them up and took them inside.

At the kitchen table, as she prepared to put them in a vase, the note attached gave her pause. It was a prayer, a moving one involving the lost and departed, and by the end of it, she couldn't hold back the tears. It was unsigned.

Later, Jimmy would find the note propped up against a vase containing the two white roses on their kitchen table and ask her, and she would refuse to explain.

* * *

**Distract**

* * *

It was a simple thing, pulling the woman to him and distracting her with a kiss at the right moment during the test of the new interceptor. For a few seconds, he nearly managed to make himself forget she was criminal out to do bad things, to pretend it wasn't life or death that he kissed her. That it was just them, and only them... and then the moment was over and she smiled at him. He returned the smile, knowing it wasn't going to last between them.

Half a minute later, the interceptor exploded, and he sighed. Playing the part of the harried business executive was something he knew well. Too well.

* * *

**Bearing**

* * *

As they had time to stand around after Robo saved their lives, Charlie finally had time to actually look at the cyborg with a practiced eye and couldn't help but frown as he realized he wasn't moving very well. And the sealed scar in the chest plate... "Sit down. Right now."

Sargeant Parks frowned at him. "Charlie?"

Charlie ignored the Sargeant as he led Robo to a sturdy chair and made him sit down. "Now what in the name of OCP happened to you?"

"Temporary repairs," Robo answered succinctly, and then automatically gave him a status report of all systems without actually telling him the why of needing the repairs in the first place, or how he'd known how to do it. Charlie had to resist the urge to go and give the idiot who fired the weapon a piece of his mind when Madigan explained it.

* * *

**Troublesome**

* * *

It was only later, after everything had settled down, that it hit her. Walking through the sanctuary of the church two days after the incident, Lisa Madigan had a realization. He'd asked her to meet him here, of all the places they could have met... and had been telling her where he'd been that night without actually saying it.

Sitting down in the very first row at the front of the church and staring up at the cross above the altar, she felt like chuckling. It made sense, in a weird way, that he'd have come here if something of a religious nature bothered him. What didn't make any sense was his not coming right out and telling them he'd gone to church to think, if it would have saved him from being shut down. It violated the public trust to admit things were bothering him enough to need guidance of a spiritual nature?

* * *

**Weave**

* * *

She turned to find a man standing there and couldn't help but stare at him. Oh, she knew him, all right. Knew who he was and probably what he was doing here in the middle of NeuroBrain in cyberspace with her, but she had never actually spoken to him herself. In fact, she hadn't really spoken to anyone but Alex and the Chairman since she'd technically (but not really) died and become part of a computer, it was so odd seeing him that they just stared at each other for a minute too long. Finally, she found her voice. _"Charlie Lippencott?!"_

He blinked. _"You know me?"_

Oh right. He didn't know her. What to say in this situation? _"Er... no. I've seen you around."_ Had seen him sleeping rather adorably at a computer station at Metro South once, too, even if she hadn't had time to dwell on it, were she really honest.

* * *

**Fray**

* * *

Watching her, Robo couldn't help but think of a frayed rope. Why Madigan reminded him of a frayed rope when she was sitting in a chair and fidgeting with a pill case, he wasn't sure, but it was a thing. He wanted to help her, but nothing helpful came to mind, so he stayed silent.

And then his wife turned up to take Madigan home, and awkwardness abounded. He didn't miss the amusement in Madigan's voice after he exited the small office, either.

* * *

**Friend**

* * *

Listening to the Sargeant give an order for Robo to return to the station, and Alex's reply of non-compliance "at this time," Diana instantly knew it was going to be a big, big problem if she didn't do something. It wouldn't solve this mess, and it would probably cause Parks to put out an APB on the Robo-Cruiser, it would give them time desperately needed to figure things out further. She held up a holographic hand, forestalling him from digging an even deeper hold with Parks. _"Allow me."_

At Metro South, a dispatch officer, Parks, Charlie, and Gadget were flabbergasted when Robo's signal disappeared form the map. Parks, predictably, put out an All Points Bulletin for their wayward cyborg.

* * *

**Brother**

* * *

He'd gone back to the tech room where Robo's chair was, trying to figure out what was going on with his charge to make act so... odd. It just wasn't in Robocop's nature to disobey the law. Not in his nature, not in the programming, and something in how Diana had reacted to the revelation of the theft of the power enhancer made him wonder if maybe they weren't looking at this thing the right way.

A beep caught his attention, and Charlie glanced at a monitor nearby to find Diana looking back at him against a really colorful background. He blinked, and moved to enter the VR environment to talk to her. What she told him about Murphy's widow having been abducted as leverage made everything suddenly make total sense.

* * *

**Comrade**

* * *

As Parks watched Robocop walk away and get into his car, and he listened to Charlie hurriedly explain about Nancy Murphy, everything about the cyborg's behavior suddenly started making sense. Of course he would act this way if he was protecting his family and didn't know where the information was being leaked.

Not for the first time in two days, Sargent Stanley Parks wished Madigan wasn't still off at that convention. She'd have told him to wait and watch... and then tracked Robo down to grill him herself. Weather she'd have actually gotten an answer, he didn't know. He also didn't know how he was going to explain this to his adopted daughter when he got back to the station.

* * *

**Spouse**

* * *

He'd been surprised when Robo had suddenly grabbed his arm just as he had gone to remove the helmet... and then he heard Gadget say something. _"Ow, hey! Let go! No kids allowed!"_ Then the grip released and Charlie swung around quickly to find a smiling Gadget standing there with an unfamiliar boy. A boy who was very quickly identified as... oh. Oh. No wonder Robo had grabbed his arm.

In short order, Madigan entered the room with a blonde woman, very obviously the boy's mother, who practically dragged him out by his ear while he protested about slogans for protest signs. Charlie watched them go, not really surprised at the unease the woman hadn't been able to keep off her face at the sight of Robo, and then sighed. He'd known something was off, at least now there was an explanation.

* * *

**Child**

* * *

Looking down at his son as he fought to find words that wouldn't make him panic while he was panicking himself, Robo didn't have to be reminded that the teenager had already been through far too much. _"She will be late."_

_"But she went to the store hours ago!"_

Putting a now-metal hand on Jimmy's shoulder, Robo tried again. _"She will be home. I am going to take you to a friend's house."_

Jimmy looked up at him for a long moment before nodding, trust in his eyes. _"Okay."_ And then he went to go pack a bag for himself while Robo waited at the door and glanced at the pictures on the walls, his attention drawn to one in particular. The one they'd taken as a family when Jimmy was six months old... and wiggly. Very, very wiggly.

* * *

**Ever**

* * *

Lisa chuckled at Gadget's question. "You asked what he was like before."

"But... downloading reports?"

"Sarge has to remind him frequently to do it." Lisa waited while Gadget thought about it, then blinked in realization. "Alex didn't like writing reports, Gadget."

Gadget nodded slowly. "I think I get it."

Lisa smiled. "Good."

* * *

**Never**

* * *

_"Use the king."_

Russell Murphy stared into the night sky for a moment, wondering just who had taught Robocop to play chess to the point where he was using chess references as code for strategy. And not just any chess reference, either, but one he had taught his son long ago. In a way, it was comforting... it felt like Alex was here in spirit.

Turning, he frowned at Parks and Madigan. "He wants to use the Chairman as a distraction to get Felix away from the window."

And someday, maybe someone would be able to explain why a robot played chess like his son...

* * *

**Scorn**

* * *

Pudface Morgan stood triumphantly over the fallen metal giant, a foot firmly on the chest plate. He'd gotten his revenge at last, the mighty Robocop was down and there was nothing he could do but lay there! At last! Victory! It was sweet, and he could taste it! It was his! All his! And it had only taken kidnapping some kid and the use of a wrecking ball to accomplish! He needed to have days like this more often!

And then he sneezed, at once reminded of why he hated the metal menace currently lying on the ground.

* * *

**Betrayal**

* * *

He'd gone from celebrating with two rather unintelligent but beautiful models one minute, to someone pointing a gun at him and telling the models to leave, to being shot, to listening to a recording of Dick Jones explaining, poorly and surperiorly, why he had to die tonight, the next. It made no sense and happened so fast that all Bob Morton had time to really process was that there was a criminal in his living room with a weapon, a grenade, a smirk, and a DVD with bad tidings.

And then Bob knew no more.

* * *

**Potency**

* * *

He knew how close he'd come to losing his life tonight as he thanked Robocop for catching him. And for what? A sense of belonging with criminals who were distributing drugs while pretending to keep order and work with the cops? What would his father have thought of this mess?

That thought stopped Jimmy short and he forced himself to take a deep breath. It wasn't long enough ago, and there were still days when he'd find himself wishing the impossible. Looking up at Robocop, he frowned. "Can you take me home?"

Robocop nodded. "Just as soon as you give your statement."

Why did the familiarity of police procedure suddenly feel comforting?

* * *

**Limit**

* * *

She'd passed the limit of what she could handle when she had arrived home via police escort to find an empty house, and Nancy Murphy finally allowed herself to lean against a wall after she'd closed the door and slide to the floor, and just sit there for twenty minutes. Why had the mad man used her to get Robocop to steal something for him? It made no sense!

Eyes alighting on the table where she kept family photos, Nancy wondered what her husband would have thought of it. As it was, she was pretty sure he wouldn't have let Robocop rescue her alone.

* * *

**Anchor**

* * *

The man wasn't going to listen to a direct order to get out of the vehicle. He could see that as clearly as he knew Charlie was going to give him a lecture about letting people plow into him with vehicles again. Setting the rambolts deadfast into the street surface, Robo locked his legs and braced for imapact.

Then he broke Dennis Finch's car with extreme prejudice. For Madigan, who had sobbed upon waking up that first time to the realization that she was paralyzed. And also for Diana, who had been infected with a nanite-driven virus and had subjected everyone in the city to bad cartoons, traffic jams, power outtages, and disco music all afternoon until he'd gotten the cure to her over her own protests.

* * *

**Harbor**

* * *

Standing at the water's edge, Robo could see the still form of his former partner beneath the surface on his thermograph scan and couldn't help but berate himself for not having been faster. If he'd just been quicker to aim and fire, Tim would still be alive and those two idiots wouldn't have been able to shoot that rocket launcher. Just when he had gotten beneath the programming and forcibly dragged Malloy to the surface with his own rules of being a cop...

Robo avoided computer terminals for several days afterward. Diana would have forced him to talk about it, and he really didn't want to.

* * *

**Adrift**

* * *

Sitting on the stack of cinder blocks in the steel mill, Robo felt lost. Adrift in a sea of knowledge and images of a life he'd lived but had no connection to. He'd meant what he said, about feeling his family but not really remembering them. To him, they were images. Feelings. But anything more than that... was a blank. Was it six months ago that his life had been forever changed? Just six months? A year?

However long it was, it didn't matter. No... what mattered now was the present and the danger.

* * *

**Greetings**

* * *

The sudden sound of a car door shutting caused Emil spin, only to come face to face with a man in a steel blue suit of armor. He frowned, raised his weapon, and then the officer said something that sent him into shock. For a moment, it was months earlier and he and Dougy were chatting, and a police officer said those same words... right before they killed him. But it couldn't be. Could it? That was impossible. Right? Right?!

Shaken, Emil babbled madly. _"Hey! I know you! We killed you! We killed you!"_

He did not remember hitting the pavement when his bike was shot out from under him.

* * *

**Goodbye**

* * *

They danced around cyberspace as one, neither wishing to put an end to the perfect simplicity of being in one another's arms but both knowing it had to come to an end eventually. It was the first time in eight months for Diana to be touching another person, and Charlie... didn't get time off to go dancing often enough.

In the end, Diana kissed him on the cheek, thanked him for the dance, and watched him disappear back to the tech room at Metro South.

* * *

**Fleeting**

* * *

Nancy entered the hospital room to find Robocop standing guard at Lisa's bedside, and frowned. He had time to watch over the ill and injured? Shaking off the questions she wanted to ask, Nancy approached the bed. "How is she?"

There was a pause as he turned to look at her. "Sedated."

"You can go. I'll stay with her for a while."

He turned back to the bed. "I was waiting for her to wake again. She was... panicked the first time."

Nancy nodded. It was understandable. "Like I said, I'll stay for a while. Go do what you need to do."

* * *

**Eternal**

* * *

Standing in the sanctuary of what had been in family church, he could almost touch the ghosts of his memory as well as see them. So much had happened since he'd last stood in this place as a member of the congregation. So much, that he didn't know where to start or which questions to ask, or who to ask them of. Was it him who had changed or the world around him?

_"Oh, Alex. What are you doing here?"_

As he turned to look at Diana, Robo was having trouble explaining that to himself. It was hard when that question had so many answers, not all of them pleasant.


	9. UDC 7, Week Three

A/N: The AU part of this involves someone not having been asleep during something crucial…

* * *

UDC 7 - Week 3 – Charlie Lippencott and Diana Powers (AU)

* * *

**Attraction**

* * *

He'd run out of ideas on what to do, now that Robo wasn't in need of further repairs. The only problem? Now the cyborg seemed to have inexplicable amnesia. So, for lack of anything else to try while the Chairman sat basically at his elbow, Charlie found himself thumbing through an operations manual.

Suddenly, all the computer screens in the room went staticky and both men jumped as a shower of sparks heralded the appearance of a woman in the center of the room. She nodded to Robo. _"Got business with the big guy."_

Charlie stared at her, dumbfounded, as she proceeded to explain her predicament and then fix what he hadn't been able to.

* * *

**Love**

* * *

There were too many coincidences, Charlie reflected as he saw her again on his first data probe into NeuroBrain. From Robo having information that he couldn't have gotten by himself from Pentagon computers, to the mystery of how Gadget had seen him in hologram form… "Hello again."

Diana blinked for a long moment, then smiled. "That's right. In all the excitement, I'd forgotten. You know… sort of. Hello, Charlie."

"So... no leaks in here, then?"

Her gaze went distant for a moment as she touched one of the virtual blue streams. "No. _You might want to try employee access_."

Under normal circumstances, he'd have asked her out for coffee.

* * *

**Commitment**

* * *

As they shared their first and probably only dance, Diana smiled at him. "We can't do this, you know. We're professionals."

"Can't dance?"

"This. Between us. It can't happen. I'm not…"

Charlie silenced her protests with a virtual kiss, and then whirled her around the dance floor. There would be time enough to discuss what they could and could not do. For now, though, it was just a dance, and it was just them. Alive or not, solid or not… it didn't matter to him.

* * *

**Marriage**

* * *

The most unusual marriage ceremony in the history of Michigan was performed by the Chairman of OCP in cyberspace, two years to the day since both parties had seen each other for the first time in the middle of a crisis. Diana had picked the day due to needing to remember it for something good, and Charlie… didn't care what day it happened on, so long as it happened.

Their lone witness had spiked into cyberspace wearing, rather uncustomarily, formal police dress blues. Neither the Chairman, nor the Bride and Groom, commented on this.

* * *

**Anniversary**

* * *

They were alone again in the expanse that was cyberspace, and Diana couldn't stop smiling at him. For some reason, she was incredibly glad he hadn't let her get away with the "we're so different, I'm legally and physically dead, and it'll never work" speech.

"You never did say what the bad thing was about this anniversary," Charlie said after a while.

"Aside from nearly being killed twice in the same day?"

He stared at her. "Oh."

"Dance with me?"

They did.


	10. UDC 7, Week Four

**Week 4** - UDC 7

* * *

**Snow**

* * *

The wind was biting cold and the snow was falling in near white-out conditions, but none of them cared for there was opportunity out here in the darkened Zone Five of Old Detroit, where the copper lines went on forever. As the leader, the Colonel who had been out of the Amazon War for long enough to get his bearings and realize no one cared what he did serving his country, stood up and addressed his unit, they all cheered in agreement.

The streets were ripe for the taking and pillaging.

* * *

**Sand**

* * *

It felt like she was buried in sand, Diana realized as she hung, suspended in the middle of a cybernetic web. She wanted to scream, cry out, anything but simply hang there and be squished out of existence by a specialized computer virus that had been planted by… who had planted it? Had that really been Chip Chaykin wearing a dress? Everything was getting hazy, and it was hard to think. Hard to do anything by hang there, suspended in forever.

And then, suddenly, she could move again, and someone familiar was calling her name.

* * *

**Water**

* * *

The evening news tended to be a source of amusing ridicule, but as Russell Murphy picked up his water glass from the end table, he heard something that caused him to stare at the screen of the television. A deadly biotoxin? How had that happened?

"Russell?" Dorothy asked him, having noticed the shock.

He blinked, handed the water glass to her, and moved to stand. "I have to call Metro South."

"At this hour?"

"Yes."

Dorothy was left wondering why a report about Robocop having been exposed to a biotoxin would shake him so badly. Then again… she was concerned, too. And Detective Madigan didn't cover her slips of the tongue nearly as well as she thought she did.

* * *

**Heat**

* * *

It was the first time she'd been to a beach of any kind since… before. Before her life had changed so irrevocably and she'd gained a family of law enforcement officers when all she wanted was one. Hers. It felt wrong to be standing on this beach, enjoying the crisp sea air, so far away from her son and missing out on things.

And then her companion reached out and touched her hand, reminding her of his presence. Nancy smiled at him, at once taken aback that she'd forgotten he was there, and stunned that she'd allowed herself to actually take a vacation that was turning into so much more.

* * *

**Clouds**

* * *

"That one looks like a monkey," Diana said as she craned her neck and looked upward, wanting to distract Charlie from the fact that she wasn't solid in his world. "With a banana."

Charlie glanced upward, frowned at the cloud patterns. "I see a spoon up there, too. Stop trying to distract me."

"What if I want to?"

"Diana..."

"What?"

"I'll spot your monkey and raise you a roller skating hippo."

She frowned. There wasn't a… "Charlie!"

"What? Give it five minutes, it'll probably happen."

She chuckled. "All right. I'll stop trying to distract you from… this." Her hand passed right through him.


	11. UDC 7, Week Five

**Week Five** – UDC 7 – Heartbreakers (episode 18, series canon)

* * *

**Seek**

* * *

He wasn't sure what he was looking for as he worked his way into electronic files he did not have clearance for, but he knew it when he found it. Knew it, but wasn't sure what to make of the fact that they'd used a dead cop to run autonomic systems for a robot… did that make it something else? And wasn't that against some kind of human rights convention?

Wilson Eberhart was still processing it in his mind when Brock turned up in his office to talk about their scheme that he hadn't yet thought about the consequences of such knowledge, or why it would have been so heavily protected.

* * *

**Sneak**

* * *

Robo knew it wouldn't go undetected for long, but he couldn't risk telling anyone about this. Especially when he had no idea how on earth the criminal holding his wife had found out his identity in the first place to be able to blackmail him with it. He opened the evidence locker roughly, not even caring about the noticeable damage, and walked out with the enhancer in hand.

He was so lost in thought that he didn't see Gadget or Charlie, staring dumbfoundedly after him. He had a woman who didn't even know why she'd been kidnapped to save.

* * *

**Steal**

* * *

Parks stared into the empty case, not quite believing his eyes. "What the…" After the confrontation at the factory, it made no sense for Robo to not have brought it with him. He looked at Robo with wide eyes.

"The scope never left the factory," the cyborg answered, and Parks could almost hear the underlying smirk in his tone.

Parks stared at him momentarily, and then nodded to the other officers in the room, guiding Nancy toward them. "All right. Someone take Mrs. Murphy's statement and then take her home."

* * *

**Share**

* * *

When she finally laid eyes on the man after being locked in that room for hours with no explanation, he seemed to be bursting at the seems with excitement every time he looked at her. Almost as if he wanted to share some secret that was burning a hole in his pocket. And the hints directed toward that robotic policeman, as if there was some kind of connection between them. None of it made any sense.

Was there some kind of connection between them? She didn't know, but the metal man always threw her for a loop with responses that reminded her so much of Alex it hurt at times.

* * *

**Sell**

* * *

After Robocop and Sargent Parks left his office, the Chairman sat down at his desk and turned to stare out the window. Two officers were dead and a weapon never meant for the streets was out there somewhere in the hands of criminals. He didn't like it when things like this happened. He really, really did not.

The Chairman glanced at his desktop monitor, wondering what Diana thought of this mess for a moment before shaking his head. No… he didn't need to ask her to know she was probably working on finding the leak herself.


	12. UDC 7, Week Six

**Week 6** – UDC 7 – On the peripheral…

* * *

**Serious**

* * *

Bea liked the kid well enough, but she was always trying to be helpful where she wasn't needed, and it was hard to concentrate with her around. It was like being at home with her own kids, and right this moment Gadget was trying her patience.

Under any other circumstances, were she not trying to coordinate police cars from a communication board and headset, she'd have been actively listening to Gadget and the boy talk and would have realized who he was. But she wasn't, and didn't, and missed an opportunity for discretion.

* * *

**Silly**

* * *

Chip Chaykin been working with these kids for weeks while helping Doctor Mallardo implement the NeuroBrain system for MetroNet, but it was the first time he'd ever seen their leader, who was manic in the best of times, call them to arms. Even turned away from him, the young man's posture was electric, fist raised in the air.

He had to wonder, for just this moment, what the kid would have amounted to had he not ended up leader of a street gang. The leader certainly knew how to motivate his people, even if his words were ridiculous.

_"All right, boys! Let's make the square hold!"_

* * *

**Charming**

* * *

He stood in his office in front of cameras yet again because the police had found illegal weaponry in some warehouse that he owned, and all Reggie Braga wanted to do was roll his eyes and send the reporters away. This was just one more thing, in a very long line of things, and it was getting to be that he couldn't be a gunrunner without tripping over a police officer at every turn.

He put on his best smile, and proceeded to play to the people. _"What do I know about guns? I'm in the nut business."_ And popped a pecan into his mouth for good measure.

* * *

**Rude**

* * *

He was going to give them all a piece of his mind for not letting him in on the action this time, when he'd been integral to the plan working in the first place so they could pull off the raid. Was going to, but then Sargent Parks threw logic at him and the cyborg mentioned something about a memo, and all Foster could do was barge out again in disgust, the wind taken out of his sails in one fell swoop.

One of these days, he was going to be there when they raided something, not after the fact, and he was going to take all the credit!

* * *

**Funny**

* * *

_"If if goes bang-bang, I got it,"_ the arms dealer told him as they stood in the middle of an abandoned church sanctuary filled to the brim with weaponry. Felix wondered if the man understood the irony of where they were having this conversation, or what he was about to ask of him. This had been a place of worship, or hoping for peace, of finding solace in an uncertain world that seemed to be more uncertain with each passing day.

Now, two men, one who just supplied the hardware, and himself who wanted to give a birthday celebration no one on the planet would ever forget, were discussing weapons here instead. A manic giggle threatened to overtake him.


	13. UDC 7, Week Seven

**Week 7** – UDC 7

* * *

**Stormy**

* * *

Upon entering the cyberspace of NeuroBrain, Charlie was assaulted with visual and auditory stimuli that caused him to immediately close his eyes and put his hands over his ears. He wasn't certain how long he was crouched there, trembling from overstimulation, but a hand on his shoulder made him jump. "Is it safe?"

The chuckle in her voice carried in the sudden silence. "You should have told me you'd be visiting today, Charlie. I was missing real weather phenomena and…"

He looked up at her. "Got carried away?"

Diana smiled as she helped him up. "Just a little."

* * *

**Trapped**

* * *

He was trapped here, arms stuck exactly as they'd been when the drug had taken affect, his face a mask of permanent surprise. Chip didn't know how long it would take to wear off so he could move again, and it had already been three hours too long as he laid in the hospital bed, his feet handcuffed to the bed while a nurse sat watch over him.

Ever since the altercation outside of Public Works, he'd gained a new appreciation for what his victims had gone through in the name of business. That didn't mean he wouldn't do it all again in a heartbeat, though.

* * *

**Escape**

* * *

Walking right out of the front door wasn't a way he'd thought he was going to escape, but William Ray Morgan wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth. Not today. All he wanted to do was kill the robot, and he'd been given another chance to do just that when his henchman had managed to slip him the EVE module underneath his spaghetti.

As soon as he was away from the main gates, Morgan finally allowed himself to chuckle madly. It was turning out to be a great day!

* * *

**Rescue**

* * *

Sitting in the hotwired truck outside of the OCP Headquarters skyscraper, Jimmy couldn't help but wonder if maybe he should have gone in there with Robocop. After all, he'd barely been walking as it was, and there was a crazy psychopathic criminal in there doing heavens knew what.

Biting his lip in thought, the teenager looked around, and then got out of the truck and went inside. The security guard at the front entrance stopped him. "There's trouble. Can you help me call Metro South?"

The guard blinked down at him for a long moment before directing him to a vidphone.

* * *

**Recover**

* * *

When Nancy arrived at the OCP Headquarters building to get her son, she hadn't been expecting to see Pudface Morgan being led to a PortaPerp, nor the tech guy from Metro South walking beside Robocop, who, as impossible as it seemed, was limping. Then Jimmy noticed her. "Mom!"

Embracing her son after all the terror of seeing him kidnapped, she stared at the metal man. "What happened?"

"Robocop saved me and got dropped by a wrecking ball," Jimmy told her.

A wrecking ball?!

The shock must have shown on her face, because he laughed. "Don't worry, Mom. He'll be fine. He's Robocop!"


	14. UDC 7, Week Eight

Week 8 – UDC 7 - Disco!

* * *

**Mistakes**

* * *

Sargent Parks was used to the odd and the strange. After all, he was a police officer and didn't end up Sargent and watch commander of a police precinct by accident. There'd been work involved. So when he'd come on duty that night to find a strangely empty arrest log, it struck him as odd. More than odd… peculiar. They hadn't had a log that empty in four or five years!

Then their lone cyborg officer entered through the doors, opened his mouth in greeting, and it was explained in ten seconds flat to the strains of 20th century disco music.

* * *

**Corrections**

* * *

Robo spiked into a computer terminal after three attempts at speaking failed him, and Parks stood by as words (and a lot of gibberish symbols one would not normally use in polite conversation) started pouring across the screen: _"Something wrong! Can't %)#(*$ arrest anyone with #(#*$& disco music coming out! Started mid-morning!"_

Parks blinked. _"Mid-morning?"_

_"Thought it would #*(#&$^ pass!"_

"Oh." Parks considered the options. On the one hand, they'd needed something funny for a while, on the other… it really wasn't good to have someone with a grip of four hundred foot pounds this upset. "Why don't we go and see Charlie, and see if we can't get you talking normally, then."

* * *

**Prank**

* * *

Gadget watched from behind the booking desk as her adopted father led Robo back to the tech room, and couldn't stop grinning. Her tweak of the programming when Charlie had let her help had worked! A little too well, actually, given that Robo was more upset than she'd ever seen him, but it had worked!

She allowed herself another minute of grinning like a maniac before finding a non-obvious place to hide while Charlie fixed it. After all, if they couldn't find her and she had the alibi of doing her homework when they finally did, how could they suspect?

* * *

**Sabotage**

* * *

When he finally found the error, it was in a line of code meant for receiving radio wave transmissions. Charlie frowned and sat back. "That's strange."

"What is?" Parks asked.

"He's receiving radio wave transmissions from a radio station, and this other line of code is making it-"

"Broadcast vocally every time he tries to talk?"

Charlie paused. "Well yes."

A line of text appeared on the screen in front of him: _"Can you just fix the #*&%$( thing?!"_

Charlie smirked and nodded to the impatient cyborg. "Of course. Is there a radio station you'd rather be broadcasting?" The glare he received was worth it.

* * *

**Revenge**

* * *

For the next several weeks, Parks would catch Gadget grinning madly every time Robo stormed into the precinct house with another perpetrator, and had a good idea of just who might have inadvertently changed the lines of code, had the opportunity, and a likely motive. Charlie wouldn't have dared do it, but Gadget… she was young and mischievous, and had a history of lying before Robo had set her straight.

Finally, after one particularly hectic night, he sat down and looked at her seriously. "Your secret is safe with me."

Gadget blinked at him over her dinner. "Huh?"

"He'd never believe it was you, and no one got hurt. He was just really annoyed. Good prank."

She seemed to deflate. "People could have gotten hurt?"

"Yes. But no one did."

"I won't do it again, Sarge."

"Good."


	15. UDC 7, Week Nine

**Week 9** – UDC 7

* * *

**Enemy**

* * *

Listening to Chip Chaykin try to talk his way out of being arrested by taking another person hostage and threatening her life, Diana was more than fed up. No, she was livid. How could he treat life like it was something to buy and sell, to trade as if it meant nothing unless it gained him something? And how could that woman, no matter how greedy or self-absorbed, have let him into her inner circle?

None of it made any sense. None at all, and she couldn't do anything from here, like this, to help the situation, or Alex diffuse it before someone else died over nothing.

* * *

**Attack**

* * *

_"You worm! You insect!"_ It happened so suddenly that Robo wasn't quite sure how it happened, but he knew why as he watched Chaykin get hit in the rear end with an energy bolt and was sent flying into the grass on the side of the street.

As the man lay there prone, and three more energy bolts rained down around him, Rochelle Carney's voice sounded from behind Robo: _"Did he forget to pay his electric bill?"_

It was absurd, but if the explanation fit and he wasn't forced to make up a story… _"Something like that." _

* * *

**Negotiate**

* * *

"So," Diana said as they sat down to a virtual dinner of fish and chips. "What is the occasion of your visit?"

The Chairman took a deep breath, glanced around at the swirling colors of cyberspace. "Did there have to be a reason, Diana?"

"No, but there usually is," she told him with a smile. "Negotiations break down over some deal?"

"No. I just… wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"The termination program?"

Understanding dawned in her eyes. "Oh. No need. Alex already thanked me."

"But I can't talk to anyone else about it."

"Ah." And so, they talked for a while about nightmarish incidents…

* * *

**Truce **

* * *

The streets had been strangely tranquil ever since the end of the city-wide police strike, as if the citizens had had enough of lawlessness to last them awhile and were now just thankful for peace and quiet again. It wouldn't last, of course. Sooner or later, something would spark into chaos again, but for just this moment it didn't matter. In two weeks, not a single officer had been killed in the line of duty.

No one thought to ask the why or the how of that one, either. It was a welcome respite.

* * *

**Friend **

* * *

They'd been married for two weeks when he finally thought to ask her something ridiculous. "Has your hair always been curly?"

Diana turned and looked at him with translucent blue eyes. "Huh?"

"Every time I see you, it's always curly."

She blinked, astonished and reached up to feel for a moment. "Oh! Oh. No. It was straight… as a board. I don't know why..."

Charlie smiled. "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry for asking the question, Charlie. I just… wow."

"I like it."

She chuckled. "I'm glad you do."


	16. UDC 7, Week Ten

**Week 10** – Jetpacks and books and proposals, oh my…

* * *

**Sky**

* * *

The piece of machinery she found Charlie studying reminded her of an engine for a fighter jet, only much smaller. "What is that thing?"

Charlie didn't even glance up when he sighed and pulled out a pad of paper and began to make notes. "It's a crazy idea Dr. Lazarus had."

"Lazarus?"

He chuckled. "Yes… and all the jokes have been done to death."

Lisa circled around to look at it better. "Seriously, what is it?"

"The prototype for a flightpack for Robo. The project got exactly this far and was then cancelled when the forth interceptor was destroyed."

Now Lisa chuckled in muted laughter. "Ah."

* * *

**Sun**

* * *

In the depths of her concentration, searching for information through multiple layers of coding in the pentagon computer system, Diana wondered what exactly it was about the men who had robbed the warehouse that had Alex so up in arms that he hadn't bothered to control the robotic voice enhancer even a little bit. Did he know he was projecting more than he needed to for such a small room, or was it leftovers from being traumatically shut down like he was?

Or was it something else entirely? She'd have to catch him at just the right moment and ask.

* * *

**Moon(s)**

* * *

It was a very slow night and Diana, not expecting anyone, had settled down in the flux to read a holographic representation of an Asimov novel. She was so absorbed in the book that Charlie clearing his throat startled her, she jumped to her feet, and struck a kickboxing pose. And then she blinked at him. "Um… hi?"

Charlie set the basket on the floor. "Good evening. I'm not…"

She dropped her arms and sat down again. "I know you're not going to do anything dumb like infect the system with a virus or try to kill people with elevators, Charlie." He stared at her. "What?"

* * *

**Stars**

* * *

Charlie blinked again. "Infect the system with…?"

"It's happened twice now."

"And the elevators…?"

"Doctor Mallardo's reign of terror on the Chairman."

"Ah."

She glanced down at the basket. "What brings you to Public Works tonight, Charlie?"

"I wanted to do something normal. Mind if I have dinner with you?"

Diana smiled and whirled herself out of the flux to stand beside him. "Not at all. I don't eat, but that's no reason not to have a picnic right here."

Charlie spread the blanket and they both sat, and chatted for a long while.

* * *

**Lightning**

* * *

He reached for one last thing in the basket, and took a deep breath. "I know you won't be able to wear it, I'm not sure you'll even be able to hold it, but…" He pulled the ring box out and showed her what was inside. "Marry me?"

Diana stared at him, then at the ring, then at him again, speechless.

"It doesn't have to be right away, and I don't know how it's going to work, but I don't care, and I…"

"Stop," Diana suddenly told him, having found her voice again while he was rambling. "Why…?"

"Because I love you. Isn't that enough?"

It was. "Yes."


	17. UDC 7, Week Eleven

**Week 11** – UDC 7 – Leap Week

* * *

**Fun**

* * *

As the world solidified around him again, two things became readily apparent. One, he was standing on a small raised platform in a green column of light in a large room filled with eerily familiar equipment. Two, information began to pour into his mind, alerting him to various small disasters, a power outage in something called Zone Five, and a traffic jam somewhere else on a connecting freeway. Also… wait. He knew the date! It… was that really the date?

Blinking in confusion, he stared down at his hands… his glowing, translucent hands. "Oh boy."

* * *

**Play**

* * *

Sitting on a table in a room with blue walls, Diana heard a noise and looked up to find a man, on the short side, older, wearing a combination of clothing that most people would think twice about. She frowned. "Do you… always dress like that?"

He paused for a long moment, looking at her. "Not always. Now, can you tell me your name and today's date?" She frowned again and told him. "Thank you."

"Where is here?" The question went ignored as the man left the room again, and Diana continued to frown. Something told her he'd be back.

* * *

**Laugh**

* * *

He heard the door open and close, and Al start to speak before the other man stopped in stunned silence, and Sam was finally able to tear his gaze away from his hands. "Am I dead?"

Al stared at him, standing there in the column of light, open mouthed, before shaking his head. "No, Sam. I… don't think so."

"Then why can I see through my hands?!"

"Not to mention the rest of you."

"Is the person in the waiting room translucent?"

Al frowned. "No, actually."

"Then what's going on here?!"

Consulting the handlink again, Al's frown deepened. "Haven't the foggiest."

* * *

**Games**

* * *

She'd given up sitting on the table that weirdly reflected a man she didn't recognize and had taken up pacing when the man from before returned. "Hi. You know… this room is really Spartan."

"What are you?"

Diana frowned at him. "What do you mean?" Two could play at that game. Unless… she glanced down at her unusually solid hands. "Oh. Oh!" The story she proceeded to tell him was far-fetched, but not the most unusual thing he'd ever heard.

Newly empowered with better knowledge, the man marched out of the room again, leaving her to frown once more. "I wonder why he needed to know all of that?"

* * *

**Vacation**

* * *

Two days, six meals, and three very indulgent bowls of ice cream later, Diana found herself back in the Flux of the NeuroBrain system at Public Works, finding little errors all over the place and ferreting out that which needed fixing in the system. Whatever else had happened in her absence, she'd arrived home to find Alex wondering who the man had been in her place, and Charlie waiting in cyberspace with a virtual picnic. Neither of those things would have been odd at all, had it not been for the detail of finding out just who the man was from the Pentagon files she'd cracked open… what in tarnation was a missing scientist supposedly stationed in New Mexico doing in her Flux stream? She'd wonder for a long time.

* * *

A/N: For those still confused as to what the crossover was: Quantum Leap. (Sam leaped into a Chimp once. This wouldn't be outside the realm of possibility. Unlikely, yes, but not impossible.)


	18. UDC 7, Week Twelve

**Week 12 **– UDC 7 – The senses…

* * *

**See**

* * *

It was different, seeing this way as he navigated his way to a wall and stared at the thermographic images of people in what he suspected was a hot tub from the color output. For a moment, he allowed himself to forget the reasons for this on this night and simply watched life proceed.

Five minutes and several dozen rounds later, the set-up of an innocent officer was achieved, and no one would ever suspect anyone other than Robocop. After all… the rule was to destroy all prototypes, including that of the helmet the officer wore.

* * *

**Hear**

* * *

Lisa was still thinking about her encounter with Gadget when Sargent Parks dropped a stack of papers on her desk. "Oh. I was wondering why my case load wasn't very much today..."

He chuckled. "These ended up in my office."

"Hmmm… she knows, Sarge." As Lisa opened up the first file, she glanced up at him, to find him frowning. "Gadget. She knows about Murphy. She was at Nancy's and there were pictures."

Parks nodded. "Oh. And…?"

"And we had a long talk. She didn't tell them, but it was close thing." Lisa frowned down at the open case file. "I'm not sure I would have had the same restraint."

* * *

**Touch**

* * *

It wasn't enough just to look at him in that uniform, she decided as she reached up and snatched the hat off his head with a knowing smile. "I just love a man in uniform."

Ten seconds later, gloves removed, she was in his strong arms, breathing in his scent and enjoying the feel of him wrapped around her. They were in public, among his peers, but just for a moment it didn't matter. For just this moment… there was only them.

Then he released her and plucked his hat back off of her head.

* * *

**Sense**

* * *

The tension was so thick he could almost see it tangibly in the air as he watched the still form propped up against the doorframe. The Chairman didn't know how long Diana could hold back the wave of the termination cycle, or even if she could stop it, and as the minutes passed, the silence in the office was almost too much to take.

And then she reappeared, winked at him in acknowledgement, and vanished again. He wasn't certain how she'd managed it, but she'd saved the day.

Later, he'd find out from Robocop that it wasn't just Diana, but also the tech back at Metro South, too. He was gratefull to them both.

* * *

**Smell**

* * *

The smell hit her as soon as she opened the car door, and Lisa nearly shut it again out of reflex. She glanced to the passenger seat, currently filled by her metalized partner, and watched in wonder as he got out without hesitation. It amazed her sometimes, the things he did. "Can't smell that, huh?" She got out reluctantly, shut the door.

His response was simple and to the point: "It does not bother me. It is just a smell."

Until right then, she wasn't certain he could smell at all.


	19. UDC 7, Week Thirteen

**Week 13** – UDC 7

* * *

**Past**

* * *

It was becoming a nightly ritual, to pause and hold a photograph, and pay tribute in silence to the past. She didn't like to talk about her loss, not even with her in-laws, though she knew they would understand. It was enough, for now, to acknowledge the pain and the grief one step at a time.

"Mom?"

Jimmy's voice startled her, and Nancy turned to find him watching her. She smiled, nodded once, and placed the picture back on the small table by the door. "Couldn't sleep?"

He shook his head. "Can you come read to me?"

Though he was a little old to be read to, she wasn't going to deny him. Not tonight.

* * *

**Present**

* * *

Waking from a sleep cycle was always a little unsettling, especially after a hard case. Now, as he opened his eyes, Robo found his father conversing with Charlie while setting up a chess board on a table Charlie had set up in front of him, and couldn't help but stare. It was the last thing he'd expected, and he wasn't sure if he should say something, or wait until he was noticed.

Russell glanced his way, smiled. "Well, now. How about a real game of chess where I know it's you?"

"I do not remember a lot."

"Consider this a memory exercise, then."

And with that, the game was on.

* * *

**Future**

* * *

She snuggled into his arms on the couch in the house she'd created in cyberspace, and didn't want to move. It was safe here, in his arms, in spite of the fact that millions of pieces of information were flowing in her mind's eye without end. Here, she could relax… "Charlie?"

"Hmm?"

"Not that I don't love it when you're here, but doesn't anyone get suspicious when you're on VR all the time?"

He chuckled. "I set an alarm system for people coming back to the tech room."

"An alarm?"

"The first time I used the data probe, Gadget teased me about getting addicted because I liked it too much. Not so. I like you, not this virtual reality."

"Ah."

* * *

**Memories**

* * *

Russell Murphy watched the eyes of what was left of his son as they sparred back and forth with the chess pieces, knowing from past experience that the cyborg remembered some very tricky moves, including one he himself had taught his son when he was just learning to play. He moved a piece, and smirked when there was a very pause. "Confused?"

"Yes."

He glanced at Charlie. "He get stumped often?"

"We don't tend to play chess during his off duty time."

A click and a whirring of servos brought Russell's attention back to the game, and he smiled, for his son had figured out how to get out of check in six moves.

* * *

**Expectations **

* * *

She often wondered what he expected of this relationship between them, if he wanted more than what she could give. More… as in children, a real home. Famly. She could give him none of that… Dr. Mallardo and Chip Chaykin had taken that from her. They'd taken so much, and she'd gained… well… a family of millions who didn't know she existed, a friend in the cyborg who protected them, and… Charlie. She'd gained Charlie.

What had he gained in all this? She wasn't sure.


	20. UDC 7, Week 14

**Week 14** – UDC 7 – Prime Suspect

* * *

**Castle**

* * *

"Come on back, Rippencourt." As soon as Charlie walked in the door for the second time in as many days, he was reminded at once that the man he was coming here to see had eyes everywhere. It galled him that the man couldn't take the time to pronounce his name properly, but that was becoming increasingly small potatoes compared to the epiphany he'd had when he had caught Gadget with the circuit board prototype.

The possibility of someone else having kept theirs? The ramifications of such a possibility? That was why he'd come across town to talk to someone else who had also been on the project… even if their pronunciation left something to be desired.

* * *

**House**

* * *

Listening to Detective Madigan berate him for not being able to say where he was on the night of the murder, Robo glanced pointedly around the sanctuary they were standing in, wondering if she'd take the hint from just his body language. It wasn't that he did not want to say, it was that he couldn't say, and all matters related to Diana were confidential as a matter of public trust. Which… he had yet to figure out how to work around, and no one had yet asked the right questions or put two and two together about the week they'd had before the minister was killed by an unknown assailant.

* * *

**Hut**

* * *

He wasn't sure what he'd find as he looked through the OCP files on his quarry who just happened to be six feet tall, wearing metal armor from head to toe, armed with a machine pistol of all things, and usually mild-mannered, but it sure wasn't a new-found respect. Smith stared at the photo on record of the officer before he'd died and at the information, and didn't want to believe the evidence of the crime any more than Detective Madigan had when she'd badgered Internal Affairs into giving RoboCop an inquest. Then he smothered those thoughts… it wasn't his place to pass judgement on who was or wasn't guilty.

* * *

**Tent**

* * *

Listening as Gadget told Charlie about having seen Alex as a hologram, Diana couldn't help but smile as she heard the man brush her off and babbled an explanation of where he'd be going to the eight year old. Though she was standing in a basement, watching with guarded hope as Alex fixed the circuitry that had been damaged by that blow to the chest, it was still strange when she found she could listen in on a conversation taking place on the other side of town.

* * *

**Cave**

* * *

With the damage he'd taken at the church, Robo was unable to uplink to Metro South, so he had to do something he had not done in years… use a telephone booth on a street corner. It was odd and humbling all at once, and he would have smiled, or tried to, had the situation not been so dire.

Though he had called the back line for the tech room and was expecting to get Charlie, instead he ended up finding out from Gadget that Charlie was one step ahead of himself and Diana and now he had to rely on the girl to get help to Charlie before something bad happened.


	21. UDC 7, Week Fifteen

**Week 15** – UDC 7 - Mother's Day Prompts? Okay...

* * *

**Wife**

* * *

When he got home to his apartment that night, he wondered what it would be like to have her here all the time and not just when he could get away or when there was enough energy in the grid for her hologram to appear. Charlie sighed and went to fix himself something to eat, only to be interrupted by his doorbell. Frowning, he went to answer it… to find a delivery person standing there with a bag. "Can I help you?"

The delivery person handed the bag to him, gave him a folded paper, and left.

Charlie unfolded the paper to find a note: "Missing you and also craving normality. Eat. –Diana"

* * *

**Mother**

* * *

She noticed the metal man staring down at the pictures of her family and suddenly felt closer to him than she thought possible. After all, this was a police officer, and though she didn't quite understand what was going on inside his head and couldn't see his eyes underneath the helmet, she did understand police officers. She'd married one, and was mother to another. Glancing at the pictures, she nodded._ "That's our son. Alex. He was killed on duty." _

The response she got was quiet, but sincere: _"I am sorry." _

_"I don't suppose you drink coffee?"_

_"No, thank you." _

* * *

**Daughter**

* * *

Everybody cheered when she entered the station bullpen with the Sarge, and Gadget couldn't help but blink in surprise. They'd really missed her that much? She looked up at her adoptive father. "I don't get it."

He smiled and patted her shoulder. "You have a family here, Gadget, and not just because I adopted you."

"Huh?"

His explanation of all the officers of Metro South, even Bea, having grown attached to her since they'd solved the Dogtown Ripper case together did little to clear up her confusion, but that didn't make it any less poignant.

* * *

**Sister**

* * *

He found her sitting at the edge of a virtual lake that continuously shifted colors, and couldn't stop himself from putting his arms around her. "Hi."

Diana leaned back into him. "Hi, yourself."

"Haven't seen you much lately."

"Been thinking. A lot."

"About?"

Her silence stretched for a long while before she answered quietly: "My sister had her second child last week. A girl. They named her Diana. After me. Why did they do that? What did I do to deserve the honor?! Die?"

Charlie was at a loss for what to say in this situation and simply held her for a long while.

* * *

**Aunt **

* * *

In the city of Ann Arbor, Michigan, a little girl named Diana grows up hearing stories of the Aunt she was named after, knowing the woman had died young, but not how or when. She grows up and has a family of her own, and keeps the story of her namesake, the woman who went to work for a corporation as a secretary and didn't get to come home again to family, close in mind.

She never does find out that her aunt isn't dead, but has kept a close watch over her family from neighboring Detroit all her life.


	22. UDC 7, Week Sixteen

**Week 16** – UDC 7 – Corporate Raiders

* * *

**Assume**

* * *

As she stepped out of the car and looked across the darkened parking lot, Lisa knew something was up, for the retired Captain Murphy never showed up at Metro South without a substantial reason for doing so. She sighed and turned to look at her partner, also getting out of a car._ "Hey, what's your Dad doing here?"_

The answer was straight, slightly defensive, and to the point: _"Memories, perhaps. He was once a cop."_

As it turned out five minutes later, he was actually there to start an investigation. Or restart one. Lisa wasn't sure which it was, and maybe that didn't matter.

* * *

**Misunderstand**

* * *

_"We need more evidence,"_ Robo said pointedly after listening to his father ramble about Tessa Stark possibly having a connection to the odd raid on the phone company.

_"You know, if my son were here,"_ Russell began to say, and then paused in thought before looking at the cyborg with raised eyebrows. _"He would say exactly the same thing. I don't suppose robots can accept apologies?"_

Robo paused, considered the man in front of him._ "Actually… I am an adaptive cyborg."_

_"Which means?"_

_"It means… apology accepted._"

Russell watched as the cyborg turned and walked away for a long moment before shaking his head._ "Cyborg?"_

* * *

**Confuse**

* * *

Coming home to an empty house, the word is still rattling around in Russell Murphy's mind as he calls for his wife and grandson, and getting no answer picks up a picture of himself with his son. Looking at the smiling faces, Russell frowns and goes to the bookshelf, opens up the dictionary to the C's and starts browsing. After a minute or so, he finds the word he's looking for and can't help but stare at the definition.

_"Cy-borg [noun]: A human who has certain physiological processes aided or controlled by mechanical or electronic devices. _  
_Origin: cyb(ernetic) + org(anism)."_

* * *

**Deny**

* * *

Confused as to what it could mean that Robocop is a cyborg and not a robot, Russell Murphy sets the dictionary down, open to the page, and looks again at the picture for a moment. Could…? Then he shakes his head and turns to go look for something to eat. _"No. I must be losing it."_

But in the back of his mind, underneath the logic, that definition swirls around, linking to events of just before the cyborg had appeared from the depths of the OCP machine. And if Robocop was in fact a human underneath… who did they use?!

* * *

**Admit**

* * *

He'd picked up the broken helmet after watching the cyborg basically run away from the scene after picking himself up off the ground and followed him out to where the police cars were parked. _"Hey Robo! Robocop…"_ When the cyborg did not stop walking, Russell decided to try another tactic. _"Alex."_

The response was immediate and if it was possible for those metal shoulders to sag, they would have. Coming around to see his face, Russell was struck nearly speechless by the subdued expression as his son stared at the ground in defeat.


	23. UDC 7, Week Seventeen

**Week 17** – UDC 7 – Tin Man AU

* * *

**Weapon**

* * *

She'd been watching him as she always did, and even Diana was surprised by the live-fire example of the coat made of a bullet resistant weave and the gun that was apparently new, cutting edge tech. Watching Charlie act like a giddy kid brought a smile to her face, and she waited until Lisa left the room on a mission to find answers on how a prisoner could have escaped with that kind of fire power.

"Was that really necessary?"

Charlie turned and looked at her, surprised by the intrusion but also pleased to see her. "You weren't impressed?"

* * *

**Helmet**

* * *

Diana wandered over to where Lisa had set the helmet down and looked at it, remembering what he'd said about it being on par with Alex's system. "Didn't say I wasn't. And before you ask, no, I wasn't able to get into the system at Buchanan Max."

Charlie frowned at her. "What?"

"Alex asked me, earlier today." She glanced up at him to see the frown. "Makes a little more sense, now that I know why he was asking. I can only imagine the flashbacks he had when he saw the guy. Is this thing really that advanced?"

* * *

**Shield**

* * *

He knew an attempt to change the subject when he saw one, but… "Yes, it is. One would even say experimental. And don't try to change the subject."

Diana sighed. "I'm just glad you didn't demonstrate when Alex was in here, too."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You startled a seasoned police officer with that stunt." She waited while he thought about it, and was rewarded when he moved to sit in a nearby chair heavily. "Sorry."

Charlie shook his head. "Don't be sorry. Thank you."

"For?"

"Reminding me why I try to be very careful in how I act and talk to him. Always."

* * *

**Cloak**

* * *

Now it was Diana's turn to blink in surprise. "You mean…"

"I mean that sometimes it feels like I have to cloak my presence and state of mind, no matter what is going on." Charlie motioned to the gun, sitting where Lisa had set it down on the cart. "And sometimes… I forget to be cautious."

Diana smiled. "You're human."

"And to err is human?"

"Yes." The silence hung between them until Diana shook her head and stifled a chuckle. "I told him that once, too. But then… he was eavesdropping on his wife at the time."

* * *

**Transmitter**

* * *

Charlie knew there was more to that story than she was probably going to tell him, so he simply shook his head in amusement as he moved to take the silver coat off the rolling stand he'd put it on to demonstrate. Looking at the collar, he noticed a tag transmitter, and frowned. "Diana?"

"Yes?"

"Do you know when Malloy got tagged?"

"Probably right before the warehouse blew up the other night. Why?"

And now something else about the behavior of his charge over the past two days made sense… "Curiosity."


	24. UDC 7, Week Eighteen

**Week 18** – the normality of illness…

* * *

**Sing**

* * *

It was a soft, quiet hum he woke to, when he finally climbed his way back to consciousness. Everything hurt, and his memories were jumbled, and his half-opened eyes could only make out shapes.

The soft hum cut off… "Shh, Charlie. Don't try to move."

"Diana?" It came out as a dry croak.

"Or speak. Everything is fine now. Will be fine. Go back to sleep."

And then she was singing again, in that soft beautiful voice of hers, and Charlie couldn't help but be lulled back to sleep.

* * *

**Talk**

* * *

When he woke up again, he wasn't surprised to see her, or hear her singing again. But… "What happened?" His voice was still rough from disuse, but he didn't feel nearly as bad.

She smiled at him. "The flu."

"You're not… see-through."

Diana rolled her eyes at him tolerantly. "You're in VR with me. The chairman convinced the doctor to do this for me, because I couldn't have stayed by your side in your hospital room day and night. It's been three days."

"Oh."

"And Alex… well, it was me by your side in VR, or him here when he's supposed to be having a sleep cycle. I won."

* * *

**Yell**

* * *

He could see that she wanted to yell at him about not taking care of himself, but wisely chose instead to ask about what had led to his ending up unconscious for three days.

"You don't remember?"

"No."

As she explained Gadget finding him asleep and feverish at a console in the tech room at Metro South, Charlie started to remember bits and pieces about it. None of it made any sense, of course… especially not Robo and Diana standing over him with worried expressions. When had that been, exactly? And why had his helmet been off?

* * *

**Whisper**

* * *

When Charlie woke again, it was to the Chairman and Diana, standing next to his hospital bed, having a whispered conversation he couldn't quite make out. He watched them, confused as to why she'd be translucent in VR until he realized that the door to his room was closed and this wasn't VR. "I thought you couldn't…"

Diana jumped at the sound of his quiet voice, turned to him, smiling. "Ah. You're awake enough for things that make no sense again. I'm glad."

The Chairman nodded to him. "Glad to see you on the mend, son."

* * *

**Ignore **

* * *

His first night back at home was spent ignoring any and all calls, by order of his usually translucent wife, who wanted him all to herself. "But I'm fine, you know."

Her expression as she 'sat' on his bed was one he never wanted to see on anyone else's. "This is for me, tonight. We could have lost you. We nearly did lose you… to the Flu."

Charlie stared at her, at once realizing that she had a point. He didn't often think of how it must be for her, to watch the world go by and not be able to do anything about illness and disease.


	25. Heartbreakers Episode Tag

A/N: Title prompt taken from Torino's Olympics moto. (And, actually in the ep, Jimmy went to a friend's house for the night. That made no sense to me, so here he went somewhere else.)

* * *

Passion Lives Here - Heartbreakers Episode Tag (canon)

* * *

He'd left her in cyberspace hours ago, but Diana was still dancing to herself and humming as she oversaw the running of Delta City and Old Detroit. As much as she hadn't wanted to lie to him about why it just couldn't be between them, Alex had been right to let Charlie down easily. It wouldn't have been fair to Charlie to tell him the truth, that she'd been unlucky (or was that incredibly lucky?) victim number thirteen of the DogTown Rippers, also known by and large as Doctor Cray Z. Mallardo and Chip Chaykin.

Presently, she ran across the access pathway that the corrupt business pipsqueak had used to get to Alex's OmniCon Classified profile and her eyes widened in disbelief at how much hacking he'd done under the radar. How had she not noticed that?!

Shaking her head, Diana put the information under even more encryption and security locks. They didn't need a repeat performance of this mess. At all.

* * *

At home, Nancy was greeted by a silent, darkened house, and a note on the kitchen table from her son.

_Mom, _  
_Robocop came and got me, and I'll be at Grandma and Grandpa's house when you get home. _  
_-Jimmy _

Nancy stared at the note, wondering what else had gone down while she'd been a guest of that criminal who hadn't seemed entirely sane. Why… or how had Robocop known to get Jimmy out of the house? Why would he have thought of it?

Sitting down in a chair at the kitchen table, Nancy let the questions hang in the air and let the horrors of the previous day wash over her. In the silence of the kitchen, a woman stares at nothing for half an hour.

It had been a very long and trying day.

* * *

It is two days before he sees his mother, standing on his grandparents front porch with an odd expression on her face. He'd opened the door with his grandmother's permission to find her there, and Jimmy wondered at the wistfulness in her eyes. "Mom?" And how had she gotten that bruise on her cheek?

"We are all family," she murmured as she pulled him into a crushing embrace. "Family!" They stood there in the doorway for long minutes before her grip loosened and she pulled back to look at him, and saw the confusion. "What?"

"What happened? You went out for groceries and then there was Robocop promising you'd be home soon but I also couldn't stay home alone!"

She blinked down at him, then raised her head to look over his shoulder. "That's a long story, and I'm not sure I understand the why of it either. Can I come in, Dorothy?"

"Of course," his grandmother told her. "Hard day?"

"Yes."

As the door shut behind them, she let him go, but her arm stayed around his shoulders. It was odd and comforting all at once.

* * *

The atmosphere at Metro South was hectic as always, Lisa reflected as she set her purse in a drawer at her desk and then stood up again and looked around. For some reason, Sargent Parks was standing at his office door, watching her with a passively blank expression. It was very unnerving, but then he always had that kind of an expression whenever she had a day off and something went strange in her absence. Sighing, she walked over to him. "So, I assume since the station is still here, nothing happened to destroy it, right Sarge?"

He blinked at her forthrightness, then shook his head. "No, nothing like that. Robo acted odd for understandable reasons, but on the whole… everything is fine. How was the conference?"

Lisa smiled. "Boring. There a report to read on the incident?"

"Isn't there usually?"

They were saved from further awkwardness by Gadget suddenly latching onto her and hugging her waist. "Lisa! You're back!"

Lisa laughed and patted Gadget's head. "Yep! Shouldn't you be off to school by now?"

Gadget smiled up at her, nodded enthusiastically. "Wanted to see you first! Going now!"

Lisa watched as Gadget picked up her backpack and ran out the door, dodging police officers and other people as she went. She nodded to the Sarge and returned to her desk. There was a report she needed to read, post haste.

* * *

Nancy opened her front door with caution and found Lisa standing there, biting her lip with impatience. "Hi. Aren't you on duty today?"

"I read the report of what happened when I was at the conference and had to see you for myself." Lisa paused, suddenly realizing how awkward that sounded. "How are you?"

"Better now," Nancy answered as she let Lisa in. "And thank you for checking up on me. Coffee?"

"I can't stay long, so no."

Nancy found herself on the receiving end of an impromptu hug and accepted it and the unspoken comfort that was offered.

"Call if you need to talk about it, all right?"

Nancy nodded, and then Lisa was out the door again.


	26. UDC 7, Week Nineteen

A/N: I don't remember what the Magic Store Owner from Illusions name was, nor could the RoboWiki give me an answer, so we're calling him Todd. (The character is canon even if the name isn't!)

* * *

**Week Nineteen** - UDC 7 - Detective Lisa Madigan and Todd the Magic Store Owner

* * *

**Conquer**

* * *

When she woke in a cold sweat with a startled cry poised to ring out but only a gasp of air escaping, the sound of a comforting voice and the touch of a hand on hers soothed. The feelings were quelled and the voice expertly eased her into relatively calm wakefulness, providing an anchor to the here and now.

As her breathing slowed, Lisa found him fully clothed and sitting in a chair next to their bed, watching her with concerned intent. "You didn't have to spend the night in the chair."

He smiled. "Yes I did. I saw the news bulletins, and you tend to kick and punch me during night mares."

* * *

**Dictate**

* * *

Looking at the sincerity in his eyes, she knew that was not a joke by any stretch of the imagination. "It wasn't that bad of a day."

"So you weren't nearly blown up three times?"

Lisa paused, sighed. "No. I was nearly blown up twice, and my partner ended up with a bomb in his leg. That was after he actually was blown up by a mad man."

Todd nodded slowly. "And the bomb in the leg?"

"Got deactivated."

"Ah."

"That doesn't mean we should let my nightmares dictate when you get to sleep in your own bed."

He stared at her for a long moment before asking a question that made her stare right back. "Who is Murphy?"

* * *

**Rebel**

* * *

The question wasn't one she was prepared to answer, especially not to him, and Lisa had to look away. "It was a long time ago and doesn't matter any more, Todd."

"You talk in your sleep. That name comes up often... usually in conjunction with 'fight', whatever that means."

Lisa blinked, startled at the observation, and let her eyes wander in search of something she could point to, to explain it without going into too much detail. Of course it would come up after a day like yesterday. Murphy had nearly gotten blown up from the inside out, after getting blown into a security barrier!

* * *

**Aftermath**

* * *

It took her a minute or two, but she found it and got out of bed to take the picture off the wall to show him. It was a picture Nancy had given her after the funeral that later turned out not to have a body in the casket, with Nancy, and Alex, and an infant Jimmy. Slowly, she turned back to look at Todd, then handed him the picture. "This is Murphy. Or was, rather. You've met Nancy and Jimmy, remember?"

Todd took the framed picture and studied the man in it for a moment before his eyes widened in faint recognition. "Oh. This doesn't explain..."

"I was there. He was my partner."

"And did he fight?"

* * *

**Rebirth**

* * *

Lisa sat down on the bed close to his chair, a pensive expression on her face as she thought about it from the perspective of someone who didn't know the whole story. Did he fight? Of course he had. But there was only so much that will and medicine could do... "Yes. I think he did."

"But...?"

Lisa saw the opening for what it was and shook her head. "They're not all happy endings. No matter how much prayer and will and modern medicine there is."

Except... in this case. The man who had been her partner was still her partner. After a fashion.


	27. UDC 7, Week Twenty

**Week 20** – UDC 7

* * *

**Father**

* * *

She'd lived at Children's Services for as long as she could remember, and didn't know how to react when the Sargent brought up the idea of adoption after she protested going back. It was strange, having someone look at her with fondness, kindness. But she wasn't going to say no.

On a dark night that had been filled with violence, madness, breaking the law, and power outtages, a family is formed between a gruff police sargent and a little girl duly determined to be a good citizen.

* * *

**Son**

* * *

It is five years since that horrible night where everything changed in a hail of gun fire, but Russell Murphy still remembers the phone call from his daughter-in-law as he watches what is left of his son puzzle his way through a chess move. Still remembers standing at graveside with his wife, silent daughter-in-law, and grandson. Five years and what feels like a dozen lifetimes ago.

He wants to tell him about all the things he's missed since, but instead, Russell glances at Charlie and then makes a move that puts the cyborg in check again.

* * *

**Husband**

* * *

Standing off to the side with Madigan as she tries to persuade him to say something, anything to the mother and son now having a reunion that had been precipitated by his son running away from home, the first thing on his mind is not saying something to either of them. Rather, he's kicking himself for avoiding the problem entirely and nearly getting his son killed by association. He doesn't know the details of how the boy came to be sitting in Madigan's car, but he can guess.

And so, when he responds to her gentle nudging on the matter, he is correct. He can not be what they need him to be, but he can protect them.

* * *

**Brother**

* * *

She watches the two boys play with building blocks in the living room and can't help but smile at the simple joy of it. They were so absorbed in the game that nothing else mattered, save the next part of the building puzzle.

Hands and arms encircled her from behind, and she let his warmth comfort her from behind. "Doesn't seem like we were ever that young, does it?"

He chuckled. "No, Gadget. No, it doesn't. Sure you want one more?"

As he caressed her expanded belly, she smiled again. "Of course."

* * *

**Teacher**

* * *

It feels odd, using the fishing tackle. Odd in a familiar and comforting way, but odd nonetheless. Glancing out across the lake, Jimmy frowns in remembrance of an afternoon spent outside, fishing with his father and his grandfather, suddenly understands why it feels so odd.

Turning, he catches sight of Gadget laying out a picnic blanket while the boys chased each other in circles and his mother watching them with a smile from where she was seated in a picnic chair. It was time to teach his boys to fish, like his father and grandfather had taught him.


End file.
